The Leaf
by Jonathan Quince
Saturday, January 8, 2005 14:11:17
Rays of light fall across the book of my memories as, called by instinct, I open the cover to behold the wonders therein. Page after page turns in my hands until, at long last, I reach the nexus appointed unto this time; and here, writ in bold letters, do I find your name.
![[The Leaf in My Palm]](http://www.sopef.org/Log/2005/01/sopef.org_New_Old_Leaf.jpeg "Come to me, Mushroom Girl...")
And next to your name, the leaf.
’Twas a bright and airy night, a College Night, when first I beheld your face. Laughter and intellect bespoke in your eyes called unto me; and wreathed by honey’d locks, gold later Transume’d to violet, your face reflected the promises of a most innocent and inquisitive era. Conversations ensued with ease and with fun; and following on an evening syncopated by contact, you came to bid me good-night.
That was when you gave me the leaf.
(Sadly, being not yet an educated botanist, I cannot tell you from what plant it originated.)
In the weeks that followed, and in time of some months later, we occasioned again to meet and to speak. By the illumination of Bach’s most often-heard double concerto, we danced a duo with the intimacy of musical acolytes and the understanding of lovers. Adepts, we, at the sciences and arts, became and becoming, attended each other’s merriment in those brief social moments.
And I always hoped, with full intent, to meet again.
The leaf sat pressed ’twixt two cards on my shelf and between pages in my book of memories. It became a token symbol of both hope and intent, a talisman imbued with the energy of possible futures. When I thought of you, I remembered the leaf; and when I thought of the leaf, I was ’minded of your sunny and shadowy visage.
Thus did a gift, long-forgotten yet always-remembered, travel through time to the present day. Thus did its allure play across my mind, stroking my skin with the caress of a lover and whisp’ring in my ear of wistful plans and forbidden fantasies. If the ardency of yearning may condense to an object of physical form, if such a token may touch a nexus point mirroring the idle hungers of a thousand days, the leaf did thusly become a touchstone of wonder, a motif of latent passion, a symbol of you.
It speaks to me, telling me of your beauty. Of laughter and of playfulness, a wild entangling of limbs and of mouths; of serious demeanor in study, as we learn anew every curve and every nerve; of flower and nectar, of private intimacies and luscious orgies; of ideas off limits, opportunities verboten, Nature’s pure heat that melts away antediluvian mores and strictures and inhibitions, thus that the sacredness of liquid light may flow between us. From yearning so long held secret and unrequited, it tells me, the time has come for fulfillment; and if, perchance, you might fling caution to the wind and come to my dangerous embrace, I might get to know you, body and mind, outside and in.
O, archetypal siren of my soul, hear me now. So easily and so multiply do I fall in love; yet schooled as I am in the ways of a monk or a god, so patient am I in my desires. Dreamer of dreams, am I, forger of fantasy, worker of magical possibilities and potentials. And in the complex pattern of my designs, will you rise to a place? If I extend to you my hand, will you nestle in my palm as nestles the leaf? If I call you, as I call you now, will you answer me?
For in the new year, I have brought out this old leaf and prepared to celebrate it.